Hello everyone,
I'm a couple years into my career in corporate finance at an F100. I have my sights set on an M7 MBA later on, and I am interested in pursuing investment management in equities afterwards.
I know that top MBA programs do have recruitment for funds like PIMCO, Fidelity, Wellington, BlackRock, etc, and I'd like to target those, but I am worried that they would expect pre-MBA investment experience in something like Equity Research, IB, or even Investment Management itself.
Can I go from corporate finance > M7 MBA > IM or is it a long shot without prior investment experience? If I move from corporate finance to, say, corporate treasury, development, or strategy (all possibilities right now) before going for my MBA, would that help? What if I also completed my CFA?
Thanks.
ApolloEast, bummer your thread hasn't had a response yet. Maybe one of these threads could point you in the right direction:
No promises, but thought I'd mention a few relevant users that work in the industry: dzelinski jpc100 JIbiyooye
If those topics were completely useless, don't blame me, blame my programmers...
Anyone?
You can make the jump just fine if you’re interested and talented. Might be easier if you played to your previous strength, I.e. go for an equity research position in the sector that you worked in at the f100 company.
That's good to hear, thanks. Also, follow-up - can one realistically transition between fixed income and equity specialization for portfolio management, or is pigeonholing a thing for asset classes?
Harder, but not impossible. When you say portfolio management, do you mean portfolio analyst or portfolio manager? IMO fixed income portfolio analysts add a lot more value than equity portfolio analysts. This is purely because of the asset class characteristics. Personally, I prefer research, but to each their own. Portfolio analysis is a good career path with great hours and good compensation.
Seen it done but depends how the company is re internal mobility, diff companies have v different approaches to it.
I have other comments related to this advice.
First, if you get into MBA business schools">M7 and pursue IM you will have a good amount of IM recruiting activity in and around your school. So that's a very nice positive.
How do you close the deal? Know companies, have opinions on stocks. Choose an industry and do deep research. Come to an interview and have a thesis ready.
Do this instead of a CFA.
It's a small incremental positive to move to a treasury/development/strategy position. The best corporate job to land would be with the in house pension team, if it exists.
Much more important to know companies and have educated opinions. We don't want broad, that comes with time and experience. Give us deep.
I should have at least a couple of years before I go for my MBA (although I've already taken my GMAT and got a high enough score), so I can focus on both if it helps. Do you have any suggestions for resources as far as performing "deep research" goes? Should I get my hands on some sell-side equity research reports and start thoroughly following an industry, or maybe read some books on equity analysis? I would hope that an MBA business schools">M7 MBA would at least get me interviews, so if I can show that I have knowledge I could have a good shot regardless of how relevant my prior finance experience was.
An MBA business schools">M7 MBA gives you a better shot at banking or sell-side ER than the buy side. End of the day the buy side (PE or AM or HF) care ALOT about prior experience. With that said, it isn't impossible to go to the buy side without prior experience after an MBA, it's just very unlikely as spots are extremely competitive and extreme limited.
Current sell-side equity research associate looking to pursue M7 and investment management. I've wanted to work at a value asset manager since undergrad, and have made most of my career decisions with this in mind. I'm going to disagree with a lot of what's been said in the thread so far.
To answer your initial question, yes Pre-MBA experience matters a lot. Here's part of a post from a Columbia MBA student that posted AMA: Reflections On 1st Semester At Columbia Business School. This was posted 3 years ago, and the IM industry has continued to see headwinds with fee compression due to passive investing. MIFID II is causing the sell-side to restructure with sell-siders also competing for the smaller available pool of positions on the buy side.
I posted a similar question, but from my situation here. A lot of good advice in the thread, with the takeaway being despite that I'm in a solid position with sell-side ER experience, high test scores, etc. it's still an uphill battle. I know you said the MBA is down the line so you may still have time for a job switch before. Sit for the CFA and look for any available sell-side ER jobs in your current industry.I don't agree with the career path SomePleb laid out. The sell-side is currently in limbo, and no one knows exactly how ER will turn out. If you hypothetically do MBA -> few years buy-side -> you'll be around 30, and you'll be entering a declining industry as an associate with little to no room to become the lead analyst given the sell-side changes I've discussed so far.
While I don't mean to discourage you, I think it's good to have a clear idea what the industry looks like. Gone are the days where active management could always see flows since they were the main way to access the markets. There will always be a place for active management, but just know you'll be competing against qualified people for a limited number of seats. My main point is that you have to know to your core that you want to work in fundamental research because it will take a lot of time to catch up to speed, sit for the CFA (potentially 900+ hours to complete all 3 levels), and develop your own framework for understanding and valuing a company. I'm only a little further on the journey than you, and it's quite a daunting task.
I'm finishing up my second year in S&T (credit sales at GS/MS/JPM) and will be starting at a top MBA program in the fall (Wharton/Columbia). Will getting into a top AM program or HF for research or portfolio management still be very difficult? I'm thinking fixed income is the way to go, since that is my current background, but will the competition from the top tier M&A bankers/MF PE guys make this exceedingly hard?
Hey, firstly congrats for getting into the program.
All my evidence is anecdotal but happy to share some of my thoughts. Passive hasn't hit bond managers as much as equity. When people talk about asset management they usually think of vanilla equity funds, and incorrectly group the whole industry. The reality is there's obviously so much more and there can be niches within the industry that can thrive despite fee pressure and move from active to passive. I think you would find more success by focusing your story on credit research and targeting those roles as opposed to equity.
To your question on competition, I think M&A bankers and PE guys are generally recruiting for more PE roles, but I don't think PE -> HF (equity and debt distressed) is out of the question. W/ portfolio management, are you referring to more asset allocation roles like FoF or an endowment? That I'm not too certain about since the job is pretty removed from fundamental research. It seems like these jobs would require the least amount of fundamental research background, and the skills needed to succeed here are having a broad understanding of asset classes and the macro environment, also people skills with interviewing and dealing with fund managers that you might give capital to.
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